The future of capitalism

From a McKinsey Quarterly interview ... one of the best articles i've read in a long while:

The Quarterly: Capitalism has just taken a beating. What will the future look like?

Richard Foster: The essence of capitalism is capitalizing—bringing forward the future value of cash to the present so that society can grow more quickly by taking risks. It goes back to the Dutchmen in the 16th century, sitting at their coffeehouses in Amsterdam and Leiden, loaning each other money for a guaranteed return. Someone said, “I’ll give you a little higher return if you give me a piece of the action”—and equity was invented. That had the effect of bringing forward, into real cash today, the net present value of future earnings. That levered society and allowed it to grow at a much higher rate than it would otherwise have. Equity was a very clever invention, and we are not going to give it up. This is the way people are. This is the way commerce works and will continue to work unless capitalism ends. And that won’t happen, regardless of what you read in the press.

Special dedication....

.. to the readers of the previous post: I know for sure some of you will enjoy this:

French "workaholism"

For quite some time now there is a debate in France about whether or not people should be allowed to work on Sundays. According to the current law (adopted in 1906!!), working on Sundays is forbidden, so as to ensure any employee a minimum of 24 consecutive hours of rest during the week. However, certain derogations are possible: for example, companies producing perishable goods or working with perishable inventories are allowed not to interrupt their production cycle; hotels, museums, other leisure companies, hospitals and a number of pharmacies to ensure minimum service can also work on Sundays. Little grocery shops can only stay open until noon, and big supermarkets have the right to stay open 5 Sundays per year. However, a new law is waiting to be passed this month or beginning 2009, which aims to relax this system a little, though clearly stating that its purpose is "not to generalize working on Sundays".

This regime is actually pretty strict as it is. I remember this was one of the things that shocked me the most when I first started to live in France: when you go out on a Sunday, everything is closed, the streets are deserted and you can't even go shopping because all the stores are closed. About the only things open are pubs (in the evening.. and still, some of the good ones are closed on Sundays!) and cinemas. Coming from a city where I had grocery shops open 24/7 at the corner of my street, I was used to just go out and buy ice cream at midnight if I felt like it. I was also used to everybody being outside, shopping, going out, roaming the city streets on Sundays. Adaptation took me a while, since I'm not a very organized person by nature, and more than once I was left with nothing in the fridge on a Sunday, and I had to wait until the next day to do my shopping. Eventually, with a little organization, one can manage, but I'm straying away from my point with this post.

I am actually writing this because I find it funny and quite unbelievable that people can talk over such a law: I thought one of the constitutional rights of the citizens was the right to work. Indeed, they also have the right to rest. These should however remain rights, not obligations, and every person should make this decision by his/her self, as opposed to things being settled through a law. Imposing people not to work on Sundays is equivalent to violating their right to work. Take for example a souvenir shop: its revenues are dependent on tourism and tourism usually occurs during weekends. Not allowing its owner to work on Sundays automatically cuts its revenues in half, because he cannot take advantage of one day out of two which are profitable for his business. I bet he would prefer to rest on Mondays instead, and I bet he would prefer to have that choice, and not leave the French state decide for him.

Other than being a sheer violation of a basic human right, I also feel this outdated law pulls French economy down, in a time of harsh economic conditions when what business needs most is flexibility to quickly adapt to the market. Liberalizing work on Sundays would actually reduce unemployment, raise household's revenues, increase the GDP and the state's budget and re-launch the economy's dynamics. How? Well, to start with, it will help lower unemployment (or at least partly offset the negative trend as a result of the current crisis) because 1) having the right to open on Sundays might make profitable some businesses that weren't before, and thus there will be new business creation and the entrepreneurs will either leave their current jobs to start-up a company, or they will come directly from the ranks of the unemployed and 2) it will create new jobs because of the need to work in shifts, or because businesses make more money and can expand their activities by hiring extra people in other departments.

Secondly, it raises household's revenues because as we have seen with the example of the souvenir shop, some people may make extra profits, and also because people can choose to work an extra day if they need it. Not only this, but it will also have a positive effect on their revenues due to the multiplier effect in the economy.. but I will talk about this later.

Thirdly, opening businesses on Sundays means making available an extra day for consumption. This is even more relevant as we see Sunday as a day of relaxation, when people are likely to make discretionary purchases. This would thus allow businesses to tap more into the revenues of consumers, as the latter will have more time to spend in their shops and more opportunities to buy. Just as a simple example, I might be very busy during the week and work long hours, so I will probably not have time to shop, or go to the hairstylist, or go out in a pub during the week. On Saturday, since it is my only free day when some boutiques are open, I'll probably run all my errands and fill up my frigde.. and do some clean up around the house as I don't like to do that on Sunday (since I see it as a day of relaxation). Therefore I probably won't have much time to do these things on Saturdays either... or if I do, then I'll have to give up on something else, like doing my shopping or posting a letter. In this way I am actually limited in my consumption by time, and not by my budgetary constraints or my willingness to purchase. This is obviously a sub-optimal situation, as I would have more utility from being able to consume all I had planned to, and as the overall business might benefit more from fully tapping into my available budget. This is where the multiplier effect comes in: the more money circulates in the economy, the greater the wealth created due to the multiplier effect . If money rotates slower, for example because I cannot spend everything I planned to in a certain time frame, then part of this effect is lost. As businesses would increase their revenues by working on Sundays, this will contribute to a higher GDP. Also, as more transactions would be made if Sundays were also available for work and therefore, for consumption, the state budget would also benefit because more VAT will be paid. Businesses will be able to keep producing on Sundays to better meet demand, even if they are not part of the currently exonerated categories. As they'll become more profitable, they'll either hire more people or raise the salaries or their current employees, which again would lead to an increase in household revenues.

Now, to answer the socialists defending the current status quo... I feel that by liberalizing work on Sundays the changes on the say to day social life will not be that dramatic. There will most likely be a reorganization of activities and a shift in the patterns of consumption: some people (but not everybody!) will probably start shopping on Sundays and take advantage of their Saturday to go out. Businesses will not generalize working on Sundays, firstly because for most businesses this doesn't make economic sense. If they do not have a strong enough rationale (such as lost revenues or lower competitiveness due to not working one day) they will not open on Sunday. Especially since an important part of transactions are B2B and overall the consensus in society is that Sundays are the days for rest, companies which do not offer services directly to the customer will probably not open because they would not have who to do business with. This is how, actually, the right to rest on Sunday is protected by society itself, without the need for a law that induces even more rigidity in an economy that is already too regulated as it is.

Not to forget that people deciding to work on a Sunday will most likely get another day of rest during the week, which might actually be an interesting agreement for families with children for example, allowing one of the parents to stay at home while the other one is at work, and thus spend more time with the child. This is also what i would use to counter the left parties' argument that working on Sundays and leaving children at home alone would lead to a surge in juvenile delinquency ...

All in all, I feel that it would be beneficial to completely abandon this 100-year old law altogether, but adopting the changes proposed (which are actually only allowing more derogations) is a step forward... especially since in today's dynamic world, both businesses and individuals are seeking flexible schedules and work arrangements. So, why shouldn't one have the right to work on Sundays, as long as it stays a right and not an obligation?...

To Blame Or Not To Blame... The Beggar

Last night it rained again, reminding me of the two weeks of rain we had at the beginning of November. As I was walking home on my boulevard, under my umbrella, an image came back to my mind, from a couple of weeks ago. I was at that time pretty moved to see a beggar sit in the pouring rain against the wall, bare-feet, on the wet sidewalk.. hiding himself and all his possessions under a ragged umbrella, the only thing he could call "home". I can only remember how eager I was to get home and sip a hot tea that day... It is in times like these that you realize the importance of having a roof to hide under, and a place to call home.

I keep wondering since that moment what makes him stay on the streets and face such a rough existence. Is it a choice, or does he, in fact, have no alternative? Did he personally make the choice not to work or was he forced to become a beggar because the labor system could not integrate him?

As an economist, I stick to the libertarian principles and believe in the power of "the invisible hand". But in this case, I wonder... can, at least, an almost-efficient labor market exist? Or is it doomed to inefficiency, by its inherent nature? Could my friend there, the beggar, find a job if he really wanted one? Or, if not, what can he do when confronted with such structurally inefficient labor markets?...

Let's look at the situation more closely. I now live in France, a very developed country where people are usually nice and helpful to each other in public, regardless of circumstances, social differences, sex, handicap, etc. However, its labor system is highly discriminative: even smaller things, like not being French (even if you are European!) will play against you in the recruitment process (this, despite the fact thatUE is supposed to stand for free labor mobility and a unique labor market for the member countries). Therefore, it's no wonder that discrimination based on nationality, skin colour, name (yes you read that right.. recruiters look at your family name when they decide whether to invite you to an interview or not), the reputation on the schools you graduated, and what not, are common. Given this situation, I can't help but wonder: how can my friend there get a job when the market discriminates so heavily on criteria which have nothing to do with actual performance on the job? How many cases aren't there, especially in France, of families moving in and not being able to get a job because of this? Thus, not being able to get a job, not having enough money to go back home, they end up on the streets.. the French state, desiring to ensure a minimum level of life for everyone, will start subsidizing their existence, which will have a negative impact on the perception of the population regarding these "street people". This, in turn, will only increase discrimination... creating a vicious circle.

I'm not saying that there are no beggars by choice - sure there are... I am not saying that what the French state does by subsidizing everyone is good.. far from it. I am just wondering whether a free (or at least pretty much liberalized) market, not sustained by government through unemployment payments, can have the means to deal with such structural deficiency. This market failure has nothing to do with information asymmetry, nor with externalities, nor with problems of supply and demand.. it is founded on irrational behaviours embedded in the conscience of economic agents. Can the free market devise a mechanism to interfere with this irrational behaviour and bring it on the right track?


*** This view might also explain why some countries have more efficient labor markets than others. For example, the unemployment level in the US (pre-crisis) was rather low because the population is very diversified and therefore there is less discrimination, whereas in France where people are very nationalist and protectionist, the unemployment is one of the biggest in Europe.